


Found a Way

by Beltenebra



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment, Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Gen, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7131419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beltenebra/pseuds/Beltenebra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoko finds himself fighting shadows. He's losing ground and needs some help getting it back. But when he goes for help, the last thing he wants to hear is that it'll get worse before it gets better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found a Way

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for je_squickfic 2012 and originally posted. Despite the difficulties I had with this story, I was really excited to write it. I tried to make it as eerie as possible and I am pleased with the results.

He turned the card over and over again in his hands, fingers absently worrying the edges. Folding and unfolding corners like it was a ritual that would help him unravel the mysteries of the universe. The flimsy card had started to fray along the creases, thin scars across black typeface. He had never really been one for origami. 

He can't remember exactly where he found the information to begin with. Maybe a late-night commercial or a cork board somewhere, layered with years of fliers, posters, and ads. A vague memory teased the edges of his mind – a worn wooden bar somewhere. Hina's braying laughter as he denounced any psychic services as a total crock of shit, a way for people to throw away perfectly good money. Maru's cautious head shake, because he wasn't willing to completely deny the possibilities. 

Yoko had laughed at them both back then. His high-pitched, wheezy chuckle. The laugh of someone with a normal life and normal problems. He no longer fell in that category. 

It must have been about a month ago. Maybe. He had barely been sleeping and the days had started to blur around the edges, one bleeding into another – a grey haze of anxiety spiked with crimson streaks of pure terror. 

It was just little things at first. Finding things somewhere other than where he had left them, a few strange sounds in the middle of the night, that sort of thing. All easily explained phenomena on their own and nothing to really be worried about. But they hadn't stopped. And it was getting worse. 

It sounded crazy even in the confines of his own head, but he thought the house might be haunted. But his mother was out of town on business and his brothers were staying with relatives until she came back and he was left in charge of the place and he'd be damned if he allowed his family to be subjected to this freaky crap. 

The door that matched the card was in the basement of a small, completely normal looking office building. Close to the station, legitimate looking – insurance offices and a dentist. You'd never know from a glance that one of the nameplates read 'Ninomiya Kazunari, exorcist'

All Yoko could see of the office's sole occupant was the top of a dark head. The rest of him, presuming there was a rest of him, these days Yoko was forced into being open to some pretty extreme shit, was obscured by the humongous castle that the man was in the process of building out of playing cards. He cleared his throat and the hands slotted one final card carefully into place. 

"Do you use those to tell people's fortunes?"

The voice was sharp, matched the face, all shadowed angles in the evening gloom of the office. "Does it say 'fortune teller' on the door? Do I _look_ like the kind of person could be bothered to spend his time lying to middle-aged housewives?" 

Where Yoko was standing he looked like the kind of person who couldn't be bothered to piss on a man if he were on fire. "So that'd be a no, then." 

"You look like shit." The man's face held no judgment, just plain matter-of-fact observation. 

"I don't doubt it. If you are really an... exorcist, then I need your help." 

Ninomiya waved him to a chair and listened as he spilled all of the details of his little personal hell, starting with the chalkboard scratching sound that woke him up every night at 3:18 am. The feeling of being watched, the strange noises and unexplained movement, knowing that something _other_ was invading his house. All of the fears and suspicions and speculations he hadn't quite been able to voice to anyone else. 

The other man had grabbed some pale slips of paper and a old, stained brush and started inking archaic kanji and strange symbols, (he tried to make out some of the words but staring at them upside down made his head hurt and his eyes water), while Yoko was still talking. 

When his words had petered out into a an awkward silence, Ninomiya finally looked back up at him. Yoko felt the exorcist's dark eyes pushing down on him, forcing him into the chair, cold iron manacles around his wrists – it was the first time he felt like Ninomiya might actually live up to the title on his door. 

"You're sure you want these?" 

He wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond. Was this some sort of test? Ninomiya's level stare offered no clues. 

"Well, yeah. I said I needed help. Why wouldn't I want them?"

"Because there's a good chance things will get worse before they get better." 

Not the most comforting news but Yoko was sure Ninomiya would be the first to tell him that he was not in the business of comfort. "I don't really have a choice." 

Yoko couldn't put his finger on the expression in the man's eyes as he handed over the sheaf of papers. It wasn't exactly unlike resignation or pity. "There is always a choice." 

Whatever sacred oil or crap was in the paper made his fingers itch. But he put up the seals as instructed. The first few days had been blissfully quiet. He might have actually gotten a night or two of real sleep, in his own bed even - he had been avoiding his room for a while, it creeped him out - before he was violently jerked back into reality. 

His sat bolt upright in bed, the unmistakable sound of feet running down the hall and a door slamming. Fuck fuck fuck. What should he do? Turn on the lights and go after the damn thing? His heart was racing a mile a minute and the instant cold sweat had turned his skin clammy. Stay here? If the noise was going in the opposite direction maybe it would leave him alone in here. He forced his eyes to try to make out any movement in the meager moonlight trickling in the window. His whole body froze as the door to his room swung silently open. 

Fuck that. 

He tore down the stairs and curled himself into a ball on the couch with a blanket thrown over his head, praying for daylight to come soon. 

He had finally tried calling Maru. If he seemed sufficiently panicked, Maru probably wouldn't laugh at him. He couldn't get through. He knew his friend was busy with a new job and had told him weeks ago that he might be hard to reach for a while but he wasn't even returning text messages. Some friend. 

There must have been a problem with his mom's international number, he kept getting error messages when he tried it. It seemed like he was on his own with this one. 

When he drifted into consciousness it was maybe late afternoon or early evening. The living room was bathed in shadows. Time was going all weird again. He blamed it on incredibly high amounts of stress and no sleep. Had he really just been sitting here in the dark staring at nothing? He leaned over and flicked the light on. 

A blood-curdling scream shattered the silence, followed immediately by the sharp crack of shattered glass. A woman's scream – in the kitchen. The lights in the kitchen were on and nothing seemed out of place at all except for the shards of what used to be a large, glass bowl in the middle of the floor. He hadn't been anywhere near the kitchen in days. Hadn't touched the dishes, but the glass was right there. 

He stood in the doorway, caught between panic and despair, trying to keep his breathing even so he didn't pass out. The minutes passed slowly in his empty, suddenly silent kitchen. 

Still no calls, no messages. Yoko had stopped trying to count the days, it would only depress him. He just had to hold on – ride it out, and wait – things would get better. They had to. 

He couldn't remember what he wanted in the kitchen, but he was immediately distracted by the bright stab of pain in his foot. He must have missed a piece of glass because his pale skin was _covered_ with blood. He swore softly under his breath and limped towards the cabinets. There were bandages around here somewhere. 

Yoko tore the place apart – he must have thrown open every cupboard, opened every drawer before he found the innocuous roll of white gauze. He had just sat himself down to fix his foot when he felt that tell tale prickle on his neck. He couldn't get away quickly enough, his eyes wide with horror as the drawers and cupboards started to slam shut one by one. At the very edge of his hearing he could just make out the sound of a woman sobbing hysterically. 

His foot was a puddle of crimson now. When would he actually be in danger of blood loss? His mind scrambled for numbers of pints or ounces or however the hell medical people measured that. He was no professional but it looked like a lot. A flicker of movement tore his eyes away from potential mortal injury. 

There was something wrong with the walls. The sunny yellow walls of the kitchen were – dripping. Something dark and suspiciously red was dripping down the kitchen walls. His head spun. He closed his eyes and mercifully fell into oblivion. 

When he came to, his stomach churning and head still spinning, he lurched for the phone and tried to ignore the scarlet trail behind him while he dialed the number on the exorcist's card, clutched like a talisman in his shaking fist. 

"It's still worse. When does it get better?" 

He thought the exorcist might have another client in the office. Through the phone could hear the tinny sounds of a female voice. _I had only turned my back for a second and every single door was open. All of the drawers. I can't take this any more._

"Sounds like she has some problems of her own."

The exorcist's tone was non-committal. "Yeah. Maybe." 

Yoko could feel the heaviness of the exorcist's silence. It wasn't going to be good news. 

"Listen, I think you had better give it up. You need to get out of there and leave the place to professionals." 

"You want me to _leave_?" 

A sharp exhalation, annoyance undercut with something that could be concern. "Yeah. It's fucking scary, right? You need to leave or something really bad is going to happen to you. I can sense it, ok?" 

He wanted to run, oh how he wanted to. But people were counting on him. He was left in charge and he was the man in the family. He had to keep his shit together. 

He heard nothing from the man for days only to be scared shitless when he turned around to find the exorcist standing in his living room. 

"Shit! What the hell?" 

Ninomiya's voice was casual, his shoulders were set in a straight anxious line. "You said you wanted to try something else, right? I'm here to help." 

"It's about time. But I don't remember telling you my address."

He didn't remember much of anything about that first day in Ninomiya's office. Only the angles of the cards stood out - stark lines of white and red and black against the gray blur in his mind. 

"It was in the client file. Let's get down to business." 

Yoko watched with quietly mounting dread as Ninomiya set up. He couldn't adequately explain the feeling building up behind his eyes except _wrongness_. Something was going to happen that whatever was causing this didn't want. 

It knows we're trying to get rid of it. It's going to fight back. 

Ninomiya's incense drifted in mesmerizing clouds – the smell was making Yoko's head ache, dull throbbing like a temple bell in his skull that wouldn't stop tolling. He thought he might be sick. He couldn't remember the last time he ate or drank anything, but he didn't think that argument would convince his heaving gut.

The exorcist was sitting cross-legged, eyes closed and facing away from Yoko. He was chanting archaic phrases that amounted to gibberish to a modern speaker in a low, even voice but Yoko could swear he could also hear Ninomiya talking _to_ him. 

_This is important, you need to think about the house. Why is it so empty? After all that has happened, why are you still holding on? Why can't you reach anyone?_

But Yoko couldn't think – didn't want to. There was something in the room, something lurking in the corners, hiding in the shadows and he knew that he _must not_ look. He knew in his bones that whatever was over there was bad and dangerous and he had to stay away.

He looked down at his hands. He almost didn't recognize them. His skin looked ashy, grey. Stress could really do a number on a person. Jagged lines on his wrists – when had those gotten there. Should've remembered cutting himself that badly. 

_Remember._ The shadows in the corner whispered. _Remember_. 

No. He couldn't listen to them. They were getting louder though. Other voices joined in the chorus. Was that his mother crying? 

The pain in his head was unbearable – the shadows were stretching out towards him, dark fingers creeping across the floor. 

No. NO. He wouldn't let it. Whatever the hell it was, whatever it wanted, he would. Not. Let go. 

Suddenly the tension in the room snapped back like a rubber band. The smoke had completely cleared – the shadows were obliterated. 

Ninomiya was still sitting, shoulders slumped in what could be relief, clever hands lax and open on his folded legs. 

Yoko shook his head to clear it – couldn't tell if it helped but the tight feeling squeezing his throat was gone. His skin was normal – whole and unmarked. "What happened?" 

"It didn't work." The exorcist's voice was dull lead, heavy with weariness. Or grief, though Yoko couldn't imagine why. 

"You should leave. You don't belong here any more. I'm sorry I can't make you see that." 

If Ninomiya's voice was lead, Yoko's was pure steel – hard and unbending. "Fuck. That." 

What did he know, anyway. His ritual did _nothing_ to help Yoko. No sham exorcist was going to convince him to abandon his place and no mere apparition could scare him out of his place, his _home_. 

He felt a surge of energy at the thought, power flowing into him with his resolve. He almost felt like his old self again - before this whole mess began. He had purpose again and with purpose, strength. 

Yoko vaguely registered the sound of Ninomiya in the background – chanting abruptly cut off by a command for someone to run. Not important. 

He grinned a skeleton grin at himself in the mirror. He took a deep breath and he could swear he almost felt the walls flex with his muscles. He wasn't going anywhere. Not now, not ever.


End file.
